Northbound to Cape Farewell

Sleeping early makes one also wake up early! Sleeping in the car would be even better if I commited to it from the beginning. What aimed to be a power nap ended up being a 10 hour deep sleep in my cozy winter bag. I do now appreciate more than ever the back seats folding completely flat.
So i set off around 05.30 first towards the beach next to the cape. I didnt have much driving left so i would prob get there just before the sunrise! Perfect.
It was a lot of farmlands and wineries one had to drive through, a LOT but eventually I am walking on the trail towards the beach. The landscape there is a weird mix of greenfields full with the finest NZ sheep and cows and coastal tropical forests which at the morning dimed light felt a bit scary...at times i was womdering 'wtf am I doing here?'
The answer was clear when i got out of the woods into the open. The beach the German guy showed me was in front of me untouched. No people, no turists, no nothing. Just the rocks, the sand and the sea. Hard to describe with words. Spend easily an hour there at times wondering around and quite some time watching the waves at the beachfront. The scene was changing constantly cause the sun started showing up making everything looking from a cold light blue color to a warm bright yellow. It was just another WOW moment. Those became a habit these days.
Visited the second part of the beach through the trail since due to the high tide couldnt go along the beachfront. There were some sand dunes and an equally impressive scene as
moments before...that and two Germans! Seems that people started to pop up. Took a stroll down the sandy beach and climbed (actually climbed the damn thing) a big rock that gave me good views over the whole bay. I was full of fresh amazing views and...also full of sand picked up by the wind. Time to move on. Saw some more beaches, including Cape farewell but they were not as impressive. While driving back the wind stopped and the sea right next to the road looked very tempting. It was certainly a different case than what i was admiring just before. I wouln'd dare bathing into those wild waves but now in a kind of protected bay I would gladly do that. It was cold and refreshing. After all i needed a wash off from todays sandblasting and erm...yesterdays biking. Yeah the plan didnt work as expected so better dirty than driving tired at night time right? Continued the drive and passed by some clear water springs and a nice beach with the 'splitted apple' rock.
Drove up the mountain again towards the west coast. This time I enjoyed the hard corners of the driving part and soon enough I was in west coast territory. It was clear from the change in weather. Just when the sun set it started to rain like crazy and the wind increased to a (I will assume typical for the west coast..) storm level. Thankfully the hostel in Greymouth was near. The best orginized hostel so far wirh an interesting bunch of people there! Most of them were strugling to dry their clothes from a days worth of rainfall. I was thinking... I came in a few hours from roughly 21 tropical degrees to... Norway. New zealand you keep on being impressive!Read more